Recent images from the news media have drawn my attention to
women’s dress but before I explain what bothers me, let me make some things
clear from the start:

- I am a woman. I am not a prude.

- I do not blame women for being assaulted if they are
wearing skimpy clothing. It is the man’s fault for not controlling himself.

- I also feel women should dress sexy in appropriate
settings if they wish. Show some cleavage and strut your stuff. Have fun!

- I have experienced beaches in France and have no problem
with topless women (or men) on the beach.

- I am not a fan of shaming women. There has been too much
of that throughout history.

I do, however, have a problem with expectations concerning
women’s dress in today’s professional world.

For example, why do women continue to wear tortuous footwear
such as pointy toes, high heels and stilettos? Men say it is sexy and women say
it makes them feel sexy. A 2015 study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior concluded that the higher the heel, the
more attention men paid to women. (1) Some women say it makes them feel and look
more powerful. Some say it helps them advance in their careers. Really?

When I was 12-years-old, my mother told me I was finally old
enough to wear high heels. I was excited; I had come of age! This was a big
deal for me—until I started wearing pointy shoes with high heels and realized
that it wasn’t all it was chalked up to be. Although it was uncomfortable, as a
teen, I followed female fashion and was always eager to kick off my shoes as
soon as I could. It has been more than 50 years since I’ve attempted to wear
really high heels and, although I’m in my 70’s now, my feet look rather young.
I’ve never had bunions, hammertoes, metatarsalgia or pump bump—conditions resulting
from fashionable footwear. Personally, I am not a masochist.

Podiatrist Michael Liebow claimed to the Washington Post, “Women will wear their
high-heeled shoes until their feet are bloody stumps.” (2) In a 2014 study, the
American Podiatric Association found that 38 percent of women reported they
would wear shoes they liked even if they were uncomfortable. And 71 percent
said they have foot problems related to high heels. (3)

In 2018, we are participating in a modern version of the
ancient Chinese tradition of foot binding, the result of societal pressure. "The practice of binding feet was not only considered beautiful, it
was considered necessary in order to get married and to have a better
life." (4) Does this sound familiar to the claim today that high heels
are sexy and help women to succeed? We may not bind feet but we certainly
shackle women’s ability to be pain free and to move with the same ease as men.

Television screen shot of CNN

I also wonder why women feel obligated to wear dresses and
skirts for state events. Notice on television, when women sit while wearing skirts
and dresses, they wind up constantly tugging at their clothing to pull it down. It is
okay in an entertainment situation but not in professional situations. Look at
the image of Sarah Sanders in her “professional” situation, showing most of her
thigh. Can you imagine a man in a professional situation unbuttoning his shirt
so you can see his chest hair? Of course not! It would be too undignified. And
it is too undignified for a professional woman to expose herself as Sarah did
in her press conference setting. Hillary Clinton has received a lot of flak
about her pants suits but she’s one of the few serious women in politics who
consistently goes against the “expectation” that women should wear skirts and
dresses. And she doesn’t wear stilettos either. Good for her! Some might argue
that professional men are expected to wear a tie. Okay, but wearing a tie does
not demean or damage health.

Women may “hold up half the sky” but we are not yet represented
equally in professional and government positions. Why do women continue to
dress according to “expectations” even at the expense of our health, dignity
and freedom? Social expectations can subjugate women. When it comes to dress in
the professional world, women make themselves victims. We will never hold up
half the sky professionally until we quit bowing to men’s dress expectations.

“Foot-binding
is said to have been inspired by a tenth-century court dancer named Yao Niang
who bound her feet into the shape of a new moon. She entranced Emperor Li Yu by
dancing on her toes inside a six-foot golden lotus festooned with ribbons and
precious stones. In addition to altering the shape of the foot, the practice
also produced a particular sort of gait that relied on the thigh and buttock
muscles for support. From the start, foot-binding was imbued with erotic
overtones. Gradually, other court ladies—with money, time and a void to
fill—took up foot-binding, making it a status symbol among the elite.”

February 15, 2018 (The Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, the deadliest school massacre in our history, cries out for us to look at the big picture and examine how our country handles health problems.)

Americans have a history of looking a problem straight in the eye and taking action to solve or lessen the problem. These are a handful of examples:

1. Sports safety equipment has evolved so fewer athletes are injured.
2. Tooth decay, sometimes leading to abscess and sepsis, affected quality of life and sometimes led to death. Toothbrushes, modern dental care and fluoride have led to better dental heath.
3. Houseflies used to homes and spread deadly microbes. Screens were invented.
4. Drivers could not see the edges of their lanes which often led to fatal accidents. Bott’s Dots were invented and used on roads to help motorists see boundaries and stay in their lanes.
5. Years ago, contaminated milk was killing children. Pasteurization of milk changed this.
6. Too many accidents were happening in work places. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was formed to reduce these accidents.
7. Some toys can kill children. The consumer Product Safety Commission was formed to oversee this problem and recall toys that could kill children.
8. Before stethoscopes, doctors put their ear to the patient’s chest to listen to the heart. Now they use stethoscopes for better heart hearing.
9. Years ago, patients who had to have legs amputated or teeth extracted suffered great pain during these procedures. Anesthesia was invented.
10. Children used to suffer from whooping cough (I did) and it was especially life-threatening in babies. Babies and children now are vaccinated with DTaP to prevent this disease.

11. When so many people were being killed in automobile accidents, seat belts and airbags were invented and legislated.12. Current problem: “When a gunman killed 20 first graders and six adults with an assault rifle at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, it rattled Newtown, Conn., and reverberated across the world. Since then, there have been at least 273 school shootings nationwide. In those incidents, 439 people were shot, 121 of whom were killed.” (NYT, 2/15/18) Solution? Send thoughts and prayers and listen to the NRA?

Google satellite map showing my childhood home and the location of the former Laurel Cemetery.

When I was a child, I lived near a cemetery with a history. From my back yard at 3410 Lyndale Avenue,
I could see houses on Elmley Avenue, the street boundary of our
approximately four square block neighborhood nestled between Belair Road and
Edison Highway.

Beyond Elmley was a piece of land that we called the “colored cemetery” in
the days before school integration. I never knew its real name until today. Looking out at
the cemetery property from Elmley alley, it was at first difficult to see that it was a
cemetery but if you looked hard, you could see tombstones, mostly leaning precariously or pieces scattered about. Amid these
broken reminders of past lives was scattered debris of beer cans, glass shards from whiskey
bottles, pieces of clothing, shrubs and vines in the process of choking out everything
that had once been.

My sister and I had a delineated half-block area we were allowed in and then a little more as we grew older and more responsible. Though the cemetery was not far away, we were not even allowed near it. Once my
younger sister and I gave in to our morbid curiosity and wandered to the alley
overlooking the cemetery. Some neighborhood kids had told us there were parts of skeletons sticking out of the ground there.

In those days, all the
neighborhood mothers used to stand at their doors and shout their children’s
names when they wanted them to come home. And the children would shout back,
“Coming!” Apparently our mother had done this and she panicked when we didn’t
answer. Frantically she began searching and found us in the Elmley alley looking for bones in the land in front of us. I think
she spanked me all the way home. (My younger sister escaped it because I was older and should have known better.)

Our mother told us the old cemetery was a dangerous place where snakes, rats and possible dangerous people
waited to pounce on us. There was talk about a man exposing himself to a child
who had ventured into this forbidden area.

And then one day there was a little girl’s body found among the weeds and trash in the cemetery. One of my
friends lived on Elmley and she could see the dying cemetery from her back
yard. After the child's body was found, my friend's father was arrested as he walked home from
work. He had been wearing his work clothes which had spots of red on it, so he was
suspected of murder. Immediately my mother said I was not to go anywhere near
my friend’s house. In fact, I was not to have any contact with her. It turned
out that her father was a painter and had red paint on his work clothes. He was
released after much embarrassment to his family.

A few years later, we learned that the cemetery would be dug up and
the bodies moved elsewhere. I remember hearing the grinding of heavy machinery
and wondering about the process. The next thing I remember is a brand
new Two Guys store near our house. Now there is a Food Depot in that spot.

Long ago, I saw everything through a child’s eyes and did not think about the
lives of those who had been buried there and their families who loved them. All I knew was that where my family was
buried looked nothing like the overgrown place that we knew as “the
colored cemetery.” Today I read the story of this cemetery (link below) through different
eyes.